Kelly Asbury Quotes
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I actually applied at Hanna-Barbera to work on 'The Smurfs' when I got laid off for a brief period of time from Disney. I didn't get the job. That was my first introduction to Smurfs.
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The way I choose voice talent is I don't let them tell me who the actor is.
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Films like 'The Wizard of Oz' and 'Shrek' are hits because they hit on different levels with different age groups. Striking that balance is what I strive for. But I won't know if I've done it until the audience sees it.
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I wanted to create a world that presented the Smurfs with obstacles and challenges and really put them in a fish-out-of-water situation but also make them very active in getting out of their situation. Make them really the central characters.
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I don't approach my movies with a target audience in mind. I try to make something that's true to the subject matter as much as possible, while still being entertaining and fun.
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A lot of people say to me, 'Is this good, to do to a Shakespeare piece?' And I think, 'You know, 'West Side Story' did it very cleverly, in a different way.' But if you look at 'Bonnie and Clyde,' 'Titanic,' 'Avatar,' 'Grease,' 'Brokeback Mountain'... they're all 'Romeo and Juliet' stories.
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If you look at it, 'The Lion King' is very similar to 'Hamlet.'
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The Smurfs - and they're this way in Peyo's comics as well - do have a rubbery indestructibility about them. They can get bruised & battered. But they then just sort of bounce back very quickly, like those classic cartoon characters Wiley Coyote and Tom & Jerry.
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In animation, there's not a medium I believe that's more collaborative. It is a team of people, of different disciplines, coming together. The decisions are made by consensus in many cases. My job as a director is to exercise the best judgement I can in terms of which decision is the best one to make for the movie.
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On 'Shrek,' Eddie Murphy was locked in as the donkey before we'd even designed the donkey.
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Smurfs must only eat Smurfberries. They can eat Smurfberry pie, they can have a Smurfberry sandwich, they can do whatever they want. But you can't have a Subway sandwich. It's got to be Smurfberries.
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What, if not Shakespeare, is open for interpretation?
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I'm in the entertainment business, and I make commercially entertaining animated features.
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I've seen animation features just languish until the right combination of things come along to keep it alive.
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I don't want to be the one accused of ruining the Smurfs.
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There's a lot of movies, and I've made some of them that could be categorized this way, but there's definitely been a trend in animated features of all types to be a little bit cynical, if you will, to have a little bit of 'knowing' humor to them, kind of a wink to the audience.
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I think 'West Side Story' is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, musicals ever put onscreen - or stage, for that matter. I, frankly, like Zeffirelli's 'Romeo and Juliet' very much, too. I grew up with that... I loved it. I loved the score; I loved the acting.
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It happens a lot that a name actor will be signed on to a project in its germ stage.
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I want the audience to walk out of the theater feeling they got their money's worth. Every movie that I enjoy, I leave the theater with something to take with me.
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My favorite films left the camera rest, and the actors and characters have a stage to act. Move the camera when it's motivating.
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We are all rebellious teenagers. Sometimes we grow out of it, and sometimes we don't.
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Star-crossed lovers who have a destiny that isn't necessarily going to work in their favor - that's a universal story; that's an archetypal story.
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Animation tends to have several different writers who serve different functions. I think, on a lot of animated features, there are a lot of writers who don't get credited. It's the policy at Disney, for instance, in deciding who gets credit. It depends on the writer's contract, so many things.
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I love all sorts of movies, whether made by Scorsese or Frank Capra. I love them all.